Banks to reopen Monday – capital controls still in place

Greek bank branches will reopen on Monday according to sources, the Athens-Macedonian News Agency reports.

The report follows a European Central Bank announcement that increases the Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) to Greek banks by 900 million euros. ELA had been fixed at 88.6 billion euros since June 29. The small increase is not enough to cope with the current rate of account withdrawals for more than a couple of days, so capital controls are likely to remain in place for a few more weeks or even until the end of the year when the terms of the new agreement with the lenders will be finalised, and the first progress review on the new agreement is completed.

Up until now there has been a 60 euro maximum daily withdrawal limit, by a different system of a weekly limit of between 420 to 500 euro is considered to reduce the need for daily visits to the ATMs.

The new higher VAT will also take effect from Monday 20July

The government has yet to make an official announcement.